


i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

by ecv-197 (lazyfish)



Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 01:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20715992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/ecv-197
Summary: Kelly doesn't heal a girl or become a deity; instead, she obeys orders and stays put. After a date with Ed that doesn't go quite to plan, though, she has bigger worries than the Admiralty's displeasure.(Or, Kelly gets pregnant and everything changes.)





	i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

“And Kelly? Stay put. We don’t know what’s going on down here. I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Ed ended the call before Kelly could protest, and she sighed. She knew he was right, of course, but part of the reason she had joined the Union in the first place was to see the universe. A planet appearing out of nowhere was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, something her younger self would scream about if she knew. Granted, it would be better for her hangover if she stayed put, but she was itching to get off the shuttle. She didn’t have the engineering knowledge needed to help Gordon and Isaac repair the shuttle, which meant she was useless - the one thing she hated being more than anything else.

Kelly walked to the back of the shuttle, but before she could get a foot out the door, Isaac interrupted her.

“Commander, I believe the Captain specifically requested you not leave the premises.” Isaac’s voice was smooth and toneless, and he swiveled his head to face her without pausing his hands.

“I’m just headed outside to take a few readings about the atmosphere. It’ll give you two more room to work.” Kelly didn’t intend on disobeying Ed’s orders - at least not the spirit of them. She wouldn’t go snooping, but she wasn’t going to stay on the shuttle and take up space. Isaac looked at her for one more moment, and Kelly swore she felt disapproval rolling off him. That was impossible, of course, since Isaac didn’t feel any emotion. She was probably just projecting her own guilt at disobeying the letter of Ed’s orders. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done anything similar before, but… never mind. It was nonsense anyways.

When the Kaylon turned back to his work, Kelly considered that her blessing to step outside. When she peered up at the sky she found a single yellow dwarf, nearly indistinguishable from Earth’s own sun, staring back at her. There were even clouds, too. If Kelly closed her eyes, she could almost believe she was back home - except that this planet lacked the constant hum that Earth had, with its constant shuttle traffic.

She pulled a scanner out of her pocket, flicking through readouts about atmospheric components and gravity strength and biosigns. There were a million or so biosigns, all humanoid, that the scanner picked up. Longing tugged in Kelly’s chest, but she knew better than to go exploring without Ed’s blessing. Contaminating a society this technologically immature would be a sure path to a court martial, and she didn’t want that. She wanted even less to strain the relationship between her and Ed, not when it finally seemed like it might go somewhere.

Going on a date with Ed was almost a foreign idea. Dates weren’t something they had done towards the end of their relationship. She had barely seen him, and most of the times she had seen him were when they were passing, like two ships in the night. Carving out an hour just to spend time together had been out of the question.

The butterflies in her stomach when she thought about the date were traitors. 

To say she didn’t have any reservations about rekindling her relationship with her ex-husband would be a lie, but right now… Kelly felt like she deserved something good. And the Union didn’t have any regulations against fraternization (and yes, she had checked), so she wasn’t doing anything  _ wrong _ either. There was an insistent nagging that she was somehow compromising herself, or Ed, or both, but Kelly was steadfastly ignoring it. Ignoring what she didn’t want to think about was one of her talents; it was why her marriage had lasted so long in the first place.

And this new thing? She was going to hold onto it, too. Not because a breakup would be infinitely more awkward when her ex was her coworker, but because she believed down deep that Ed was the one she was meant to be with. She didn’t know how to explain it; it just amazed her that everything they’d been through, they’d still somehow stumbled back together. It had to mean something.

Her musings about Ed filled the time Isaac and Gordon needed to repair the shuttle. Kelly had taken a few more basic measurements while outside, but that was it.

She spared the village one last glance before stepping onto the shuttle to return to the  _ Orville _ . It was a lost adventure… but she had a whole different type of adventure waiting for her on the ship, anyways.

\---

“What do I have to do to convince you to go on a second date with me?” Ed’s eyes looked suspiciously like a puppy dog’s when he stared at her, and Kelly had to resist the urge to lean across the table and kiss him again. The grape jelly was still sticky-sweet on her lips and she much preferred when there was peanut butter to balance it out, but she needed to answer his question.

“Promise not to cook again?” she suggested with a laugh.

Ed grinned at her. “I think I can manage that.”

“Then you have yourself a deal.” Kelly wracked her brain, trying to remember their shift schedule. Being the first and second in command meant they often worked together, which in turn made scheduling dates a lot easier, but only when she could remember when they were working.

“How does three days from now sound?” Ed asked. To Kelly, that sounded almost criminally long; they still had ten more days to wait for the planet to pop back into orbit, and there was nothing to do but sit and watch empty space. If Ed wanted to take things slow, though, she wasn’t going to argue. She had been the one to put the final nail in their marriage’s coffin, which meant she needed to be the one to take the backseat while they rebuilt.

“Amazing.” She leaned forward to kiss him again, tongue swiping through his mouth to catch a taste of peanut butter. Ed smiled against her lips and Kelly could only smile back. “You going to let me plan this one?” she asked, her mouth still practically on top of his.

“Depends on how much alcohol it involves.” Ed pulled back, giving her a look. “I’m not letting you talk me into another hangover.”

“You promise never to cook and I’ll promise not to give you any more hangovers.”

“Sold.” His eyes were shining like they hadn’t in ages, and Kelly’s heart stuttered in her chest. She wanted to kiss him again, but she was focused on taking things slow. They had probably already passed their first date kiss quota.

“Meet me in Simulator One, eight o’clock sharp.” Kelly didn’t have a clue of what program she would run, but she had three days to figure it out. The sim was better than trying to get Ed into her quarters without tongues wagging. Since the whole crew knew they used to be married, there seemed to be a small faction of people who were convinced they were still hooking up on the regular. Kelly had done her best to quell those rumors, but if they were regularly seen entering and exiting each other’s rooms at late hours of the night, there wasn’t much she could do.

“It’s a date.” Ed smiled, and Kelly forgot just about everything else in the world.

\---

The simulator was prepared, but Ed wasn’t there yet. Kelly bounced on the balls of her feet, trying hard not to feel like she was twenty-something and waiting for him to pick her up again. Briefly, the thought crossed her mind that he might be standing her up, but Kelly shoved it out before it could do more than whisper the doubt.

Ed wouldn’t stand her up. He was probably doing something stupid like trying to decide which shirt made him look the coolest. An exasperated fondness curled up in Kelly’s chest, and she leaned against the wall beside the simulator as she waited.

Two minutes later Ed came jogging down the hall, his hair mussed but his clothing pristine. That was it, then - he had been trying some sort of carelessly windblown hairstyle that had taken him too long to perfect.

“Picnic?” he asked, spying the wicker basket at Kelly’s feet.

“Doesn’t involve cooking or alcohol, so I figured it was fair game.”

“So you’re telling me there’s not a single bottle of wine in there?” Ed asked. Kelly had her back to him so she could double check the sim settings, but she could feel the disbelief in his gaze anyways.

“Maybe, maybe not.” She grinned at him, snatching the picnic basket out of his reach before he could open it and check. She gestured Ed through the door first, because she was polite. Definitely not because she enjoyed the view from back here.

She had gone back and forth on whether the Central Park simulation was a good idea; they’d had dates there before, and Kelly wasn’t sure how much of their old history she and Ed wanted to hold onto. At the end of the day, though, nostalgia had won out. Besides, this sim was Central Park circa early-21st century, a far cry from the Central Park they had gone on dates in. 

“This is so weird,” Ed said with a laugh, peering around with wide eyes. The leaves on the trees around them were a splatter of colors for autumn, and there was something quaint about the buildings in the background being squatting brick and stone instead of the chrome-plated highrises she and Ed were used to. 

“Good weird?” Kelly asked, taking a quick step so she was beside him again.

“Yeah,” Ed said, reaching for her hand. Kelly threaded their fingers together carefully, refamiliarizing herself with the map of calluses on Ed’s palms. “Good weird. Do you think there was really a statue of a dog here?” The statues in Central Park had always been a source of fascination for the inhabitants of 25th-century New York City, since so many had disappeared when the city transitioned to using solar power and the park had become a solar panel hub.

“We can find out?” Kelly suggested. They had the picnic to eat, but it couldn’t have been far past noon in the simulation. They had as much time as they wanted.

“You know, I heard about this university that has a statue of Kermit the Frog…” Ed went on to ramble a bit about the Kermit statue and its history as they wandered through the paved pathways in the park. There was a map that showed the location of the statues, but Ed insisted they forgo it for the sake of adventure. Kelly could’ve pointed out their entire lives were devoted to exploring something a tad more novel than Central Park, but the way excitement sparked in his eyes when he got to pull her down another path made her hold her tongue.

(His eyes were beautiful with the sunlight turning them golden. His eyes were beautiful all the time, really. It was entirely unfair.)

“There he is!” Ed pointed to a smudge of copper in the distance he must’ve identified as the dog statue they were looking for. Childlike joy lit up his face, and he tugged on her hand until she fell into a jog beside him. It probably would’ve been easier if they let go of each other’s hands, but practicality mattered little when it came to being close to Ed.

They were both slightly breathless by the time they skidded to a stop in front of the statue. Ed’s hand slipped out of hers to wrap around her waist instead, and Kelly leaned into his side while they both considered the statue.

“It’s kind of small, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” Ed agreed, laughing. “I can’t believe we spent an hour looking for this thing.”

Had it really been an hour? Kelly couldn’t tell. After the story about the Kermit statue they had gotten pulled into a discussion about Muppet politics (which had been enlightening and spirited if not entirely serious) and then Shakespeare, since they had passed by that statue on their journey. Their conversation had meandered almost as much as they had, with many digressions and interruptions and double-backs, but it was easy. Comfortable. One of her main fears about starting this whole thing again was that it wouldn’t be the same, but gallivanting through Central Park was proving her wrong.

“You wanna picnic here?” Ed asked, gesturing to a nearby patch of grass. Kelly didn’t have any objections, except that Ed had to let go of her so she could prepare the picnic. She spread a gingham blanket on the grass, gesturing for Ed to begin unpacking the food while she smoothed the blanket out.

“Ha!” Ed said when he withdrew the bottle of wine. “You do have alcohol!”

“If that gives you a hangover, we’ll have to talk.” Kelly straightened, the blanket satisfactorily uncrumpled. “Unless you’re not planning to share.”

“I’ll share,” he answered immediately. “Promise.”

“Worried of what I’ll do if you don’t?” Kelly asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“A little,” Ed admitted as he returned to unpacking the basket. “...Kel. This is only desserts.”

“Yup.” 

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Claire will kill us.”

“Claire doesn’t have to know.”

“I feel like I’m going behind my mom’s back or something.” Ed snorted. “I’m a grown man, I can eat cake for dinner if I want to!”

“Technically I think this counts as lunch.”

“The point stands.”

“It does.” Kelly scooted across the blanket so she was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Ed, trying to draw some warmth from him. She hadn’t realized how cool it was earlier, when walking was generating some heat, but now they were sitting and the chill was getting to her.

“You okay?” Ed asked as he sliced into the cake.

“Fine.” She let her head loll against his shoulder, resisting the urge to bury her face in the heat of his neck.

“Kelly,” he said, voice warning.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, giving in and pressing her nose into the joint between Ed’s jaw and neck.

“Fucking hell!” Ed flinched away from her. “You’re freezing.”

Before Kelly could so much as dispute the statement, Ed was stripping off his jacket and draping it around her shoulders. She took a moment to decide whether or not she was angry at him and eventually settled on not being angry - this time. The gesture was sweet, and Ed was smart enough to remember she wasn’t a damsel in distress. Just a damsel who forgot a jacket.

“Thank you,” she whispered, scooting closer to him again. He slung his arm around her shoulders, and Kelly reveled in the familiarity of the gesture.

“Don’t thank me yet, I might still eat all your cake.”

“What happened to ‘Claire will kill us’?!”

“Some things,” Ed said, spearing his first bite of cake, “are worth Claire killing me over.” 

Suddenly Kelly got the feeling they weren’t talking about the desserts anymore. She took a morsel of cake for herself, staring down at it. What  _ would _ Claire say about them restarting their relationship? What would Gordon? Kelly couldn’t imagine it would all be flattering.

“Hey.” Ed squeezed her. “Stop thinking so much.”

“Make me.”

Ed chuckled. “If you insist.” He set his cake down and used his free hand to tip her chin up, fitting their lips together easily. His mouth tasted like chocolate and autumn, crisp and cool and sweet. This was everything she had dreamed of, everything she had hoped for, everything she wanted.

(It was a good thing Kelly hadn’t programmed any people into this sim. If she had… well, suffice it to say, it was a  _ very _ good thing she hadn’t.)


End file.
